A pan-African technology company, Cellulant Corporation, has affirmed its commitment to helping fix Nigeria’s broken agriculture value-chain with innovative solutions.
Agriculture is a crucial economic sector accounting for about 23 percent of Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), but the value chain is highly underdeveloped.
MD/CEO, Wema Bank, Ademola Adebise; CO-CEO, Cellulant Corporation, Bolaji Akinboro and Chief Compliance Officer, Cellulant Corporation, Solomon Abiakalam at the Inaugural Partners’ Summit organized by Cellulant in Lagos on Wednesday.
Speaking at Cellulant’s inaugural partners’ summit themed ‘Technology for Transformation: Connecting Everyone to Nigeria’s $50bn Agribusiness Opportunity & Creating Jobs for Africa’s Youth’ held in Lagos on Wednesday, December 18, co-founder and CEO, Cellulant Corporation, Bolaji Akinboro, said the company would not relent in helping to improve the Agric value chain.
In his presentation entitled ‘From Farm to Fork: Transforming the Agribusiness in Nigeria Through Technology-What does the Future Hold’, Akinboro explained that the country’s Agric-value chain needed to be fixed to enjoy the immense riches in the sector.
He disclosed that consumption of food, the end product of most agricultural activities in the country is worth about $100million daily and between$36 billion to $50 billion annually, hence the need to improve the value chain.
He also highlighted Cellulant’s strides in improving the agriculture value chain with its payment platform, Tingg, and Agrikore, an innovative platform built on blockchain technology.
Akinboro said: “We are not just a fintech company; we have the technology and operations via Agrikore. When you combine technology and operations, you can change the world. We are providing technology that makes life better for everyone; Nigerians and Africans. We are the ones that can bring in the change.
“At Cellulant, we remain committed to providing innovative-led solutions to grow the agricultural sector and empower Nigerian farmers. We pioneered Agritech innovation that powers the livelihoods of more than 17 million farmers and allows all players to connect to solutions that transform how they do business.”
Akinboro added that “technology is a critical enabler to solve many of the challenges experienced in the Agric sector. In the last 15 years, Cellulant has actively contributed to connecting all key stakeholders in the value chain, who in the past never interacted with each other. Today, the business has built a marketplace and payments platform that provides access to markets, digital financial services, and opens opportunities for all stakeholders to collaborate better and capture the $50b market opportunity.”
MD/CEO, Wema Bank, Ademola Adebise; CO-CEO, Cellulant Corporation, Bolaji Akinboro; Chief Compliance Officer, Cellulant Corporation, Solomon Abiakalam and Manager, Retail Marketplace, Cellulant Nigeria, Jennifer Onyebuagu at the Inaugural Partners’ Summit organized by Cellulant in Lagos on Wednesday.
Also speaking at the occasion attended by critical stakeholders in the agribusiness ecosystem including farmers, aggregators, and retailers, the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Wema Bank, Adebisi Adebise, reiterated the importance of cooperation between every player in the Agric value chain.
Adebise identified problems of the Agric sector to include a low level of budgetary allocation, low financial literacy, a large percentage of unbanked population and the limited capacity of financial institutions to understand the value-chain, assured that Wema Bank would continue to partner Cellulant to improve agriculture.
The summit, which continues today (Thursday) had in attendance development partners including African Development Bank, Shared Agent Network Expansion Facility (SANEF) and DFID.
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